


Handled With A Chain

by Carmarthen



Category: Edward Scissorhands (1990), X-Men (Movies)
Genre: Bittersweet, Crossover, Gen, Translation Available
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-21
Updated: 2011-07-21
Packaged: 2017-10-21 14:55:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/226447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmarthen/pseuds/Carmarthen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters knew the story: misunderstood youth, mob action, near-tragedy. What was different this time is that the call came 40 years late, and the boy turned out to be something entirely other than a mutant.</p><p>Also available <a href="http://idbarracuda.lofter.com/post/1ee68b13_10c14477">in Chinese translation</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Handled With A Chain

**Author's Note:**

> Long long ago, scalesandfins and I were for some reason talking about _X-Men/Edward Scissorhands_ crossovers, and we wrote a bunch of snippets. I am not sure that this quite qualifies as a story, but I think it holds together reasonably well, so here it is.

"What the hell did he _do_ up there all those years?" Logan asked.

"Topiary," Scott said.

* * *

Magneto thought Edward was a tragic waste of potential. He balked at everything, too afraid of hurting others to remember that he could be hurt, too.

Magneto preferred his people with a little more...backbone. He wasn't even sure Edward had a backbone. Literally.

* * *

Logan heard the quiet snick of metal as he was reaching up for a beer from the cabinet. "Soda?" he asked, without turning around. Edward had a tendency to twitch when he was agitated; it was rather disconcerting, too much like the sound of giant insects.

"Yes, please," the kid said in his quiet, reedy voice.

Logan popped a claw and poked a hole in the top of the soda can, watching sidelong as Edward stared at him in wide-eyed fascination. He started to hand the can to Edward, then stopped, found a straw, and set the can, with straw, on the table. "Couldn't sleep?" he asked.

"I don't sleep," Edward said softly.

* * *

Marie found out entirely by accident that she could touch Edward. She hadn't really thought about it, but it made sense. After all, he wasn't a human, or a mutant. She wasn't entirely sure what he was, but he didn't sleep, and he only ate when reminded to.

And although she watched movies with him late at night and combed his hair and helped him cook, she had to keep reminding herself that it wouldn't be fair to take advantage of his immunity to her powers. Not when he couldn't touch her back.

* * *

Edward's hands are normal now, if metallic. He's not entirely sure how Magneto did it, but it doesn't matter. At first it had been wonderful to be normal, to be able to touch people without fear, to be able to pick things up without breaking them. He could even feel, after a fashion, through the vibrations. And all that was still...nice. That was the problem.

The first time he picked up a pair of scissors, idly preparing to cut a paper snowflake, they felt wrong, clunky, not the natural extensions of his body that he was used to. The snowflake was pretty enough, but pedestrian.

It was not his art.

**Author's Note:**

> Title, per Lishan's suggestion, from Emily Dickinson:
>
>> Much madness is divinest Sense--  
> To a discerning Eye---  
> Much Sense--the starkest Madness---  
> 'Tis the Majority---  
> In this, as All, prevail---  
> Assent--and you are sane---  
> Demur--you're straightway dangerous---  
> And handled with a Chain--  
> c. 1862 (1890)


End file.
